The Fighters Journal
by TheAllTimeLow
Summary: Rose Hill is hope for the hopeless and I was the most hopeful of them all. That was until I met Alex. When I first saw him I couldn't believe someone so broken could still be living. jackXalex. possible M content.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

"I give up on you."

Those are the worst three words someone at Rose Hill could ever hear.

It's about thirty years since the infamous 'ipad 2' was released, and a lot has changed. Back then, you could roll up to the hospital -blind in both eyes, deaf in both ears, with Alzheimer, Dementia, and not capable of forming a coherent sentence- and they wouldn't think twice about denying you an immediate end. You could get down on your hands and knees and beg to be euthanized, and they would shoot you down faster than you could even consider shedding a tear for your cause.

Not like animals.

You bring a cat in that's in the same condition and they will actually advise you to kill it. Because it's cruel to keep them alive and watch them suffer. I imagine if someone from thirty years ago showed up today they'd probably say we had lost our humanity. I disagree. If anything, I think we've gained a greater perspective on it. Why is it okay to kill an animal at our will, but we are required to keep our own species alive? In my eyes, keeping anything alive that is suffering, especially one who may have even requested to have their suffering be ended, is inhumane.

And that's kind of how things are at Rose Hill.

It is the last place for those people who have either given up on themselves, or have had the world give up on them. For the broken, the lost, the insane, and the hopeless; this is where they come. Each person is assigned a staff member and that staff will work with them until they say those five words. And once those five words have been said, the person is euthanized. We are their last hope - a light in the dark worlds they've banished themselves to and a hand to reach up for from the dirt they have let themselves wallow in for too long. When they say their life is no longer worth fighting for, we start a war for it. Rose Hill is hope for the hopeless and I was the most hopeful of them all.

That was until I met Alex.

When I first saw him I couldn't believe someone so broken could still be living.

He was tall, but his frame was so thin I could hardly believe he was still managing to stay vertical. It looked as though, if he exhaled, the force of his breath would cause him to topple over backwards. His hair was long and matted as if he hadn't washed it in weeks and there was dirt caked under his fingernails that suggested my assumptions were true. His right forearm was wrapped up in white gauze and dark circles were buried deeply in the rough skin under his eyes. But his eyes. Oh, his eyes. They were the most unique shade of brown I had ever seen. And, had they had any life in them at all, they would have been impossible to look away from. But as it were, they still held my gaze. I looked into those brown eyes and saw a pain I'd never witnessed before in my life. Years of secrets and bottled up emotions had buried the light that had once existed there leaving them dull with the ache of happier times long forgotten. I could see the scars that lay beneath them - invisible unlike the ones that would form under the bandages he wore.

I didn't know whether to feel sorry for him, or to be completely fascinated.

"Welcome to Rose Hill. My name is Jack. I'll be the staff member assigned to you during your stay here. Please, don't hesitate to buzz me if you ever need to talk or anything. I'm always free. The staff live on campus, so there usually isn't any delay if you call. I'll show you to your room now," I turned slightly, hesitant to whether he would follow. After a moments pause he picked up the single piece of luggage he had brought and followed me down the long hallway that lead to the Dorms, as we called them. To be honest, they were more like cells than rooms. As most of the residents were here because of suicidal tendencies and intense depression there wasn't much in the rooms as far as personal belongings go. Each room varied in the level of caution and as the resident progressed they were granted more access to "unwanted" objects. Things like: pencils, shaving razors, perfumes, scissors, mirrors, and anything that could generally be used to hurt ones self.

We stopped outside of the room that had already been assigned to him and I pushed the windowed door open, gesturing with my arm for him to go in. Alex glanced at me, his eyes piercing, before going in and sitting down carefully on the bed. He ran his fingers in wide circles while he stared blankly at the tiny waves of wrinkles that began to form in the once perfectly laid sheets. I cleared my throat awkwardly, making a weird noise that only seemed to make the tension increasing uncomfortable. "So... I guess I'll just leave you to get comfortable. If you need anything just press the button here that says "office" and they'll ring me through to you. If you hold "talk" you'll be able to talk to me or the people in the office, kind of like an intercom. I'll come get you for dinner in about an hour, and then after I'll give you a tour and we can talk about the routines and what-not of Rose Hill. Do you have any questions before I go?"

"Just one," He murmured, still staring down at his circling fingers.

I waited, anxious to hear the first real sentence from this intriguing boy.

"Do you really think I can walk out of here a different person? Do you really think you won't give up on me?" Alex looked up abruptly and once again his eyes locked me in a glare so intense that I couldn't help but flinch. I saw every person who had ever let him down, ever given up on him when they said they wouldn't, and I couldn't force forward the words that I had told so many people I'd been assigned to before him. I couldn't tell him I wouldn't give up on him. Because as I stared into those eyes, a small part of me wondered if I really did have what it takes to heal this severely broken boy.

Or if I would just join the list of people who had lead him to this place.

"I'll try."

It was the only thing I could give him, and he knew it.

I already felt like a failure.

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><p><strong>AN: Thanks for reading!**

**I know I have unfinished stories, but I was excited about this one, and I feel it actually going somewhere. I hope you enjoy it too and continue to stick by me and review my stories.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

As he sat, elbow to elbow with the other residents that filled the long three tables of the dinning hall, I watched him intently from the other side of the room. He was staring blankly at the plate in front of him; the fork in his hand pushing the untouched food around his plate. Every so often he would blink and something foreign would appear in his eyes. For that brief moment in between blinks I saw a mixture of emotion so chaotic and wild that I couldn't think of a single adjective that would properly define what I saw there.

Blink. Gone.

"Plates to the front, everyone! Anyone with food still on theirs might as well not even get up because an empty plate is your only ticket out of here." There was a chorus of groans and crude protest, but The Boss - a petite women with grey woven into her waist length auburn hair - just smiled sweetly. She leaned back against the large double doored exit of the dinning hall, crossing her arms casually across her chest. "I can wait here all night."

You could always tell the new residents from those who had seen their fair share of Rose Hill winters. The old ones would scowl and turn begrudgingly back to their food, knowing she was dead serious, as they too had once tested the legitimacy of her promise. But the new ones would just sit there and smirk - food remaining untouched, chin tilting towards the ceiling in ignorant defiance. And they would sit there. Every so often they would try to sneak a glance at the doors thinking maybe she had given up and they were free to go.

It always amused me when they discovered The Boss still standing at her post.

Their eyes would grow wider and their mouths would gape a little until they would turn away from the small smile that never seemed to leave her face as she stood there. The Boss stood at a whopping four foot six, her real name Lily, but her outward appearance told little to the story of her fiery interior. And though most of the men on staff could lift her with one arm, she earned her title as The Boss every time someone dared question it. Meal times were her specialties and the staff frequently talked of a night where she stood until dawn to keep her promise.

Alex swiveled around in his seat to glance at the doors, than back to his plate; chest puffing out and then falling as he exhaled a deep sigh. Then, eyes firmly shut, he began to shove food into his mouth as fast as the fork would allow. I watched as he devoured the plates contents and then opened his eyes. A look of pure and utter disgust contorted his face into lines of anger while his knuckles turned white around the fork he still held. He pushed away from the table and exited the hall, brandishing his cleared-plate-ticket as he went.

"Hey, Alex! Wait up! Do you even have any idea where you're going?"

I was huffing when he finally stopped so I could catch up to him. Though I was tall and lanky, I was horribly out of shape. He stared silently while I worked to catch my breath and I wondered idly if I could sneak some weights and a treadmill into my room without anyone noticing.

"The better question is, would I even use it if I did mange to?" I mumbled, pulling myself back to full height. Alex looked at me like I should have had a room set up in the psych ward. "Don't mind me. Just thinking out loud."

"Right," he said shortly, kicking the toe of his shoe into the ground with enough force to send several large chunks of dirt flying into the air. "And people think we're the crazy ones. The ones who need help..."

The emotions from the dinning hall flashed across his face again and I seized my opportunity at a chance to unfold a chapter on this mystery boy. "Do you think you need help?" Alex exhaled abruptly, his lips twisting upward into a bitter smirk. "My opinion doesn't matter," his tone was formal as though he had memorized it from a textbook. "I am a chronic depressant. I am a suicide risk. I must be watched, and observed, but never trusted. I am a self-harmer. I am a threat to myself and society. I must open up to you completely and trust you willingly without question." He kicked the ground again and I couldn't help but laugh.

"And I am immune to bullshit," I said matter-of-factly, watching as he looked at me in surprise. "Yeah, you're quite the little hypocrite, aren't you? You seem rather bitter about being judged and treated as a textbook statistic, yet you're so willing to do the exact same thing to other people. Don't think for a minute that you know me and especially don't walk in here thinking this is just another place that will treat you like you're just another patient. You're not. You're Alex. You have a name, a story, feelings, and no one here - especially me - will ever overlook that. Ever. And whether you want to accept it or not, I care about you. I want you to walk out of here in the end, and if I didn't, I wouldn't be here right now trying to convince you otherwise. You have to stop thinking that everyone in your life is going to screw you over."

We walked around in mutual silence, me casually explaining certain places and routines of Rose Hill, him nodding but never saying more than a word or two of acknowledgement. "This is a journal - your journal. Write whatever you want in it. Hell, write a whole page that just says 'fuck you' over and over; I don't care. Just write something in it every day and then you can either choose to give it to me to read at Sessions on Friday's, or you can choose to keep it private. Your journal is your journal and anything you decide to put in there will remain secret so long as you choose to keep it that way." He nodded and I set the notebook on the small desk with a thin ballpoint pen. "Oh, and I'd really appreciate it if you didn't decide to do anything reckless with this pen. I don't want to put you on a supervised writing program."

"People actually do that? With pens?"

I smiled, no humour touching my face. "You wouldn't believe how broken some people are..."

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><p><strong>AN: As always, thanks so much for reading.**


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